


The Mendeleev Coping Strategy

by HostilePoet17



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 08:38:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 705
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16446497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HostilePoet17/pseuds/HostilePoet17
Summary: A brief glimpse into the aftermath of Nikola's transformation.





	The Mendeleev Coping Strategy

**Author's Note:**

> *Set within my overall Teslen headcanon that will likely never see the light of day*
> 
> This is for Day 3 of Teslen Appreciation Week! The writing prompt was "Elements", so here we have Nikola's coping mechanism - reciting the periodic table of elements. For those eager chemists among you who note some absent elements, this was (as far as I can tell) the structure of Mendeleev's periodic table in the late 1800s when this fic is vaguely set!
> 
> Enjoy! (Any mistakes are wholly my own and the by-product of having one eye on the fic, and the other on an episode of Only Fools and Horses.)

“Hydrogen. Lithium. Beryllium. Boron. Carbon.”

Helen sighed. “Nikola, please.”

“N-nitrogen. Oxygen. Fluorine.”

“Darling, please, open your eyes. It’s alright.”

“Sodium!” His voice grew louder, his hands gripping the sides of his head in an attempt to block her out. “Magnesium! Aluminium! Silicon!”

“For goodness sake,” she reached towards him, tugging at his hands.

He gave a great hiss, eyes snapping open as he reeled away from her. “D-don’t touch me!” He spat.

Helen sagged backwards, hand outstretched to him. “You can’t do this to yourself, we can make real progress with this, Nikola. But we can’t do that if you keep locking yourself away.”

Nikola squeezed his eyes shut once more, pressing his fingers into his temples. “You need to leave.” He took a great heaving breath. “Phosphorus. Sulphur. Chlorine. Potassium. Calc -” He stuttered to a stop as her fingers brushed against his brow, and let out a whimper. “Please, Helen. Leave.”

“I can’t do that, you know I won’t. Let me help you.”

He opened his eyes once more, swiping at the tears beginning to slide down his cheeks. “Leaving would help. Please, Helen. I can hear…” he swallowed. “I can hear your heartbeat, you’re so close, I can  _ taste  _ it. Please, you need to go.”

Helen retreated once more, letting her hand drop from his face and watched as he crumpled in on himself, pressed into the corner of the room, reciting his mantra.

“Titanium. Vanadium. Chromium. Manganese. Iron. Cobalt.”

Defeated, Helen got to her feet and stared down at her dear friend in the throes of anguish. Biting her lip, she turned to his bed, where her notes and journals lay abandoned. Her scribbled accounts of his transformation, of their attempts to aid his indomitable hunger, were the glaring evidence of her failure to care for him, of the wicked existence she had thrust upon him. Sniffing back tears, she gathered up her notes, and strode out of his bedroom.

Nigel looked up from where he sat in his armchair, brow furrowed from his own voracious research. “How is he faring?”

Helen took a steeling breath, fixing her gaze on the corner of the living room where the wallpaper had started to peel and sag. “Not well, he’s having a particularly dark day.”

Her colleague sighed in resignation, and slumped back in his seat. “The latest serum’s not taken well at all.”

“No, it doesn’t seem to be curbing any of his...instincts.” She sniffed once more, brushing her hand under her eye quickly.

However, Nigel was the quietly observant sort of fellow and got to his feet immediately, whipping out a handkerchief. “Steady on  there, ‘El. We’ll get him sorted out, don’t you worry,” he held out the handkerchief to her, which she accepted with a grateful albeit watery smile.

“Thank you, Nige. It’s so bloody frustrating, I hate this, I hate not being able to -” she pressed the handkerchief to her mouth to swallow the sob that was threatening to overwhelm her. 

Nigel reached out and rubbed her back soothingly. “I know, believe me I know. I lie awake at night listening to him cry out in the next room. He won’t let me near ‘im. I don’t know what to do when he’s like this, but what we can do is work day and night in the lab to make this right.”

“You’re right,” she sighed. “Of course you are, you’re always right. Thank you.”

He smiled at her. “Always right, eh? You’d best put that in writing for me to whip out the next time you give me a bollocking over something.”

Helen snorted and shook her head. “I never said anything of the sort, you must have imagined it, emotions running high and that.”

“You cheeky blighter. Looking forward to when ‘imself is back to usual form,” he chuckled, nodding to the bedroom door behind them. “You’ll ‘ave no time to torment me.”

She huffed a laugh. “Indeed.” She glanced down at the handkerchief, tracing the rough embroidered initials. “Goodness, what on earth happened to this?” She asked, waving the stained cloth towards him.

“Ah, iodine, ‘El. Iodine.”

Helen’s smile slipped a fraction before she fixed it anew, though it no longer reached her eyes. “Messy bugger.”


End file.
